The Living Room Chronicles:Step 3: New Coffee Table

Heyyyyy you crazy people! I knew you couldn't stay away from the world of coffee tables and pallets!

If you remember correctly, 2 living room posts ago, I showed you the best Craigslist deal this side of the Mississippi River! After my new sofa showed up I knew I was in need of a new coffee table.  The only ones that I could find to fit the space were black or white and I really wanted a wooden coffee table. I tried to think of ways I could make a coffee table myself, but you can't really use a coffee table made out of cardboard and I couldn't figure out a way to make one out of old kitchen cabinets. So, I turned to the most logical thing I could think of... shipping pallets. They were almost exactly the same width I wanted. 

So, I went on Craigslist and sure enough someone was selling them. He also happened to be selling them not far from my favorite fabric store (Mary Jo's) and right around the corner from the only drive in movie theater near Charlotte. Did you put together what happened next? I talked Scott into turning the pallet party into a fun trip.

When we went to pick up the pallets I went a little overboard and bought as many as would fit in the car. The wood was pretty unique looking to me and I figured I could use them for all sorts of weird projects. We stopped and picked up some lovely fabric and then headed to the drive in movies in totally packed car that smelled like a lumber yard. 

When we got there we realized that we could not recline our seats even the slightest. Who wants to watch a double feature sitting as straight backed as you possibly can. So, with all of our new drive-in neighbors watching and secretly judging us we unloaded pallets until we could recline a little.  Then we had to prop a pallet against the back door so the trunk wouldn't be up the whole time (that would have been against drive in rules). The whole thing was pretty awesome.

The next day I started playing around with how I was going to put this beautiful table together.  

I was trying to keep it simple. But he said he would help me turn it into a legitimate table. I gave him a drawing of what I was hoping for and sent him home with some pallets. 

Apparently the wood was really dry and the nails that were used to keep the pallets together were rim shank nails (not good if you are trying to get them out and keep the wood in good condition). Because of this he ended up using most of my pallets just to get the necessary wood out of them. It turns out that my simple plan changed about 100 times and required him to completely take apart the pallets and rebuild them. It would have made a lot more sense just to buy new wood. I bought a cedar mail post to use for the legs. My awesome handy man spent many frustrating hours and finally returned with my very unique new coffee table!

I sanded it, stained it and polyurathaned it and put it in the living room.  It was perfect.  It was better than what I had envisioned!

Now, you can check out that pretty pallet paradise in its new home:

The 7 Steps That Made My Living Room:

Step 1: Move in. Put in whatever furniture we had. Hang art.

Step 2: The Craigslist deal of a lifetime

Step 3: New coffee table (Step 3 Introduction found here)

Step 4: DIY remote control holder. A tiny, tiny step, but we are still calling it one.

Step 5: Should we change out the fireplace?

Step 6: The plant table and the plants

Step 7: Finishing touches

The Living Room Chronicles: Introduction to Step 3: New Coffee Table

Things are getting crazy around here again. It's Thursday and there is a post up! Let's just call this an introductory post. I want to prepare you for the awesomeness that is going to happen in tomorrow's post. I will just tell you that it involves a car packed full of shipping pallets at the drive-in movies about 5 years ago.

I was in the market for a new coffee table and I went looking high and low to find one. But, it turned out that finding a reasonably priced 36" x 36" wooden coffee table was impossible.

I checked out a dozen or more thrift stores in the area and went to town with Google.
The closest thing that my Google-mania produced was an Ikea coffee table that was just the right size, but only came in white or black. It is now on sale for only $99.99!

Ikea has since come out with this beauty of a coffee table for $199

Here are the rest of the coffee tables I found that inspired what I came up with and will reveal tomorrow. Or... surprise ruiner... you could just check out the after photos that I posted at the end of this post. Remember that this was before the days of a Pinterest-infested world so the inspiration pictures were pretty stinkin' hard to come by!

This is before the day that the world decided to use shipping pallets to make every single piece of furniture in the world. So, I thought I was pretty clever coming up with the idea of stacking a few pallets on top of each other to make a coffee table. I don't know how to make furniture (despite the awesome benches that my BFF Mali and I made in about 5th grade. You had to sit on them at just the right angle so they didn't collapse). So, I consulted with my Handy Man Extraordinaire. He thought I was more than a little bit crazy, but he agreed to do the job. 

I will continue this thrilling saga tomorrow!

Do you want to check out all of The Living Room Chronicles steps?

Here you go!

Step 1: Move in. Put in whatever furniture we had. Hang art.

Step 2: The Craigslist deal of a lifetime

Step 3: New coffee table (Step 3 Introduction found here)

Step 4: DIY remote control holder. A tiny, tiny step, but we are still calling it one.

Step 5: Should we change out the fireplace?

Step 6: The plant table and the plants

Step 7: Finishing touches

The Nursery Chronicles: Step 3: Wire display

Here we are, back in chronicle land. The Nursery Chronicles is where we be! It is a paradise of yellow, grey, and green. 

Let's get to steppin'

Step 3: Get some more furniture. Start the decorating: Wire display for pictures.

It is time to talk furniture which, to me, obviously means it is time to talk Ikea.

Here are a couple Ikea secrets for you. There are secret cut-throughs in the Ikea showroom and in the Ikea marketplace. Bring me with you and I will get you through the crowds and to the checkout in no time at all. Another little Ikea secret is the hidden gem that Ikea calls the "as-is" section. PS...neither of these things are actually secrets. Everyone knows about them.

The "as-is" section is always the first area I check in Ikea. On one of my weekly Ikea trips while pregnant, I had some luck in the "as-is" section. I bought a little table to go between the daybed and the wall. It was a random space that needed something just the right size. If you know me it should not surprise you to find out that I made a very detailed list of all of the possible items at Ikea, Target, and anywhere else that had random pieces of furniture that might fit. I categorized the possible item by type. Then I pasted a link to the item, wrote the dimensions and how much it cost. Lucky you... I found the list and did a little "print screen" of the first page (out of about 6 pages). Craziness

So, after I spent all of that time making crazy lady lists about potential items to fill the space I found something that was the perfect size in the Ikea as-is section. And it was only $20. I scooped that right up! And did a couple laps with it raised above my head singing the Lion King song about how proud I was to have it. Thankfully, the last part did not really happen. But I was a little bit crazy- I saw it, broke out the tape measure, realized it was perfect and practically ran to the check out. I didn't want to have to cart it around the store the whole time because I knew it would put a damper on my efficiency. And I didn't want to risk someone else seeing it and raising the roof with it. So, I bought it, loaded it into the car and back to Ikea I went.

Here is what I bought.

This is the random space I wanted it to fill.

And here that space is for you... all filled up!

OK- let's readdress the pregnant weekly Ikea trips. I was working hard on Cora's sweet pad. That required a bit more time in Ikea than you would think. I'm not the only Ikea-obsessed pregnant lady though... next time you are at Ikea look around. I guarantee 7 out of 10 people that you see you have got the baby belly going on.

I googled "pregnant Ikea" and this photo of 90210's Jennie Garth popped up of her and her very pregnant belly wheeling her haul away from Ikea.

Onto the fun part. It is finally time to start decorating the nursery! 

I love a good wire display. To me, decorating is all about spacing. I think about what colors and sizes I want in a space. Then, I pick items that help balance things out. And what this space needed for balance was a little wire and some squirrel pictures.

Here is how it went down:

1. I bought two packs of the Dignitet curtain wire from Ikea ($12.99 each) and one package of the Riktig curtain hooks ($2.99).

2. Scott and I installed them. It was frustrating. You have to make sure to get the wire really, really tight or it will sag. We had to do this twice on each row twice. It still isn't super tight but we were happy enough with it.

3. Fabric stash! The fun part!!! I broke out all of my fabric and found 7 different kinds that would work in the room. A number of them had already been purchased specifically for this room.

4. I did a little trial and error and decided what size I wanted my wire hanging items to be. Then, I cut 14 pieces of cardboard to that size.

5. I cut 14 pieces of fabric to a size that was just big enough to wrap each piece of cardboard like a present.

6. I ironed all of the fabric. 

7. I wrapped each piece of cardboard to make sure it fit.

8. I hotglued the fabric to the cardboard.

9. I hung all of the pieces up. I spent forever arranging them into the perfect order.

10. Then I gathered random pictures that I already had, some from online, and some I photocopied from my favorite children's books. I clipped the photos onto the fabric and...

Waaaaaahhhh Laaaaahhh! Consider step 3 complete!

Here are all of the after nursery photos. 

I change out the pictures that are clipped on every once in a while. I try to put in pictures of things Cora loves.... mainly ducks!

There were a lot of steps to get this nursery where it is today. Don't you worry- I am going to go through every little step in some future blog posts for you.

Here they are:

Step 1: Get rid of the old furniture and try out some more baby-centric duds for the room. Crib, bookshelf, and daybed.

Step 2: Convince my husband to do more painting than anyone would ever want to do in their whole life. Start the painting spree by painting over the headboard on the wall. Get a dresser/ changing table and refinish it.

Step 3: Get some more furniture. Start the decorating: Wire display for pictures.

Step 4: More decorating: Put up the book slings. Floating shelves.

Step 5: Decorations, Part 3: Hang art above the crib and all around the room

Step 6: Refinish side table and get a few more pieces of furniture

Step 7: Paint the chalkboard and mirror and hang them.

Step 8: Put up the curtains. Line the inside of the dresser with some of my extra fabric

Step 9: Paint the mailbox. Finishing touches.



And one more Ikea secret (for the Charlotte store, at least). Park near the exit. Parking is always atrocious near the entrance. This way you can just slip over to the entrance in no time and then be close to your car when you're done. Also, the exit puts you closer to the as-is section which is where I run to first anyway.
 


Time for the Would You Rather question of the day!

WYR... win an all expenses paid trip to the Galapogos Islands for 1 week (and you are still paid your normal salary while you're gone)
or
never have to do yard work ever again... it just magically happens.



image sources: dignitet, riktig

The Master Bedroom Chronicles: Step 4 And The Start Of The Daily WYR

This past weekend Scott and I went to the lovely and very fun wedding of one of his college friends. It was my first weekend away from Cora and it was a great time... the groom even did a little Young MC- Bust A Move solo! We got to see lots of Scott's college friends. As usual, Scott was tossing out lots of Would You Rather questions. His friend, John, said that he would answer a WYR every day. So, today is the day that the daily Would You Rather (WYR) question starts on Never Listless. It will be at the end of the post. Answer away (John Ake- that means you).

I am going Chronicle-wild around these parts. It is time to take a jog back to The Master Bedroom Chronicles. We are in Step 4 or as the New Kids on the Block would say, "Step Four. I can give you more."

Step 4: Redo an old chair for the desk.

Wooooooooooo! A peak at the after photo first!

Once again, I am a bit of a lame-o when it comes to having a proper before photo. The chair was a brown chair with a fake leather seat cover. It came free with my art deco vanity on Craigslist. I didn't even want it, but they insisted it was part of the deal. So, I took it.

You can see the black, fake leather seat pad in this photo.

I am glad they forced it on me because now I love the chair and am not so fond of the vanity. 
This chair lived in the garage for the first two years that I had it. I was under the impression that the seat would be almost impossible to remove and reupholster. I had done some investigating and that was my conclusion.  A couple of years later, I took another look.  Maybe it was that I had a little more DIYing under my belt. Maybe I was blind the first time I looked. But, as you might be able to see from the photo, this chair is very modify-able!

I started the project immediately after realizing my mistake. Usually, I like to think about things, write some lists, look at lots of photos online, write some more lists. Then, about 3 months later I may take the first step in the project. This time, I was so excited that I went straight to seat-ripping. 

Next, I painted part of it yellow and part of it grey. It turns out I didn't like yellow or grey. I liked the original brown color. So, I had a sanding party. I taught that yellow, grey, and brown paint a lesson. 

I picked out a brown, glossy spray paint.  I found out that glossy was probably not the best idea.  As you can tell from the photos, I could not get the chair sanded down perfectly and the inconsistencies will show up a lot more with a gloss finish than with a flat finish.  


Next up... break out the fabric stash. I found the perfect one right away (because I am a crazy lady with an enormous bin of fabric who doesn't even sew).   I am obsessed with this Amy Butler fabric.  

I used a staple gun to attach the fabric to the seat cushion.

Spray paint time! The key to good spray painting it patience! I like to do 3-5 thin coats about 3 hours apart (depending on what the can recommends). I am not a patient person. I want to spray up a storm and get it all done in one shot. But everyone knows what that leads to- drip city and thick, gooey paint that peels off easier and just doesn't work out. 
Usually, I try to save up my spray painting to do list for one big paint extravaganza. Since I will already be spending lots of time waiting for one project to dry I hardly notice if I throw a few extra projects in.

Other spray painting tips:

• sand before you paint
• don't spray very close
• wear gloves
• use a mask
• have good ventilation
• lots of drying time

 I put the seat back on and YAY... I had a beautiful, new chair... one that I can't believe I tried to pass up for free.

Step 1: Move in. Throw a bunch of random stuff into the room and live with it for a while to figure out how we wanted to use the space.

Step 2: Rearrange the furniture and add a seating area.

Step 3: Redo a desk with a funky chevron pattern.

Step 4: Redo an old chair for the desk.

Step 5: New comforter and lamps.

Step 6: Headboard, Part 1

Step 7: Make some wedding related art.

Step 8: New entertainment center.

Step 9: Add some new art

Step 10: Headboard, Part 2. Finishing touches. Try to bring it all together.



The New Kids on the Block's Step by Step:
Step 1: We can have lots of fun 

Step 2: There's so much we can do

Step 3: It's just you for me

Step 4: I can give you more

Step 5: Don't you know that the time has arrived. HUH!

cover image of another cassette that I wore out from here
Donnie, you are lookin' COOOL!

Here is a little reminder of what the Master Bedroom turns into after all of the steps are complete:

You want more chronicles? You're ready for the next chapter of The Master Bedroom Chronicles? I am sorry to tell you that it's not here yet. But go ahead and catch up on the rest of your stories: The Nursery Chronicles and The Bonus Room Chronicles. 


WYR... Get home and there is a deer in your kitchen. It didn't mess anything up  getting in but you have to deal with getting it out.
or your house smells like pickles for a month.

This WYR is from Scott courtesy of a 6 hour drive.